What businesses are deemed essential and who determines which ones stay open?

A local craft store is being criticized for keeping its doors open during the statewide stay-at-home order.

Posted 3:08 a.m. Apr 1, 2020 — Updated 3:08 a.m. Apr 1, 2020

Aaron Thomas

, WRAL reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — A local craft store is being criticized for keeping its doors open during the statewide stay-at-home order.

Hobby Lobby on Capital Boulevard, like many of its locations, remains open for business. Julius Conwell sees the arts and crafts store as an essential business.

"Those supplies maybe help their children to help with things they can do at home until this thing really breaks," said Conwell, a Raleigh resident.

In Tuesday’s news conference, Gov. Roy Cooper said businesses can stay open if they practice social distancing. We spoke with a Hobby Lobby employee who tells me the arts and crafts store is allowing 10 people to shop *inside* at a time.

Ricardo Gutierrez says he feels at ease while shopping in public.

"It's people's choice, they get to choose if they want to go or not," Gutierrez said. "It's just a matter of being careful, keeping clean."

Wake County Commissioner Greg Ford said officials received several complaints about Hobby Lobby being open for in-store shopping. Wake County officials say craft stores are not considered essential business and must be closed for the remainder of the county and state orders to stay home.

We reached out to the state Department of Revenue, the organization that determines if businesses are essential. A spokesperson says businesses that were not included on the list of essential businesses can make direct requests to the Department of Revenue and can continue to operate once they have made the request until they receive a response.

All should follow social distancing per the order.

What constitutes 'essential businesses'? States seem to have varying standards

One of the county commissioners was pretty vocal on Twitter about the store allow in store pickup. He texted WRAL a statement and part of of reads “corporate responsibility is like personal responsibility we are all accountable for our choices and must do our part to resolve this public health emergency."

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